Tesco, the UK's biggest supermarket chain, said today that all the plastic bags it gives out at almost 2,000 stores around the country will be degradable from this September.

That move, involving four billion carrier bags a year, is one of series of environmental and social initatives announced by the Tesco chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, to counter increasingly negative perceptions of the group and meet customer demands for greener shops.

Other initiatives under the plan, entitled 'Tesco in the Community', include putting wind turbines on top of stores, opening regional food counters, encouraging local suppliers and organising sport events that will get two million people exercising before the London 2012 Olympics.

The plan, outlined by Sir Terry to the Work Federation research group, will also see Tesco reduce the number of deliveries to its stores to cut congestion and find other ways to make deliveries.

Sir Terry said: "Nothing stands still in retail. We have become Britain's most successful retailer by being open to changing perspectives."

Given Tesco's immense power in the British retail market - where one in every eight pounds spent passes through its checkouts - it is perhaps unsurprising that the ten-point plan reads like the manifesto of a political party promising real change nationwide.

Environmental campaigners, who have regularly lambasted the store for its business practices, praised the Tesco move, but questioned whether the group's dedication to relentless expansion would ever allow it to be truly green.

Vicky Hird, food campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said that replacing standard plastic bags was "a drop in the ocean" given the mountain of food and packaging waste produced by Tesco stores every week.

"In a way, if they really meant it, they would cut out the plastic bags from the system entirely and encourage customers to have reusable bags. Degradable is only a partial solution," she said.

But Ms Hird conceded that cutting energy consumption by half from a 2000 baseline was "an impressive goal" and welcomed the plan to cut congestion by reducing the frequency of delivery to stores.

"I'm a bit cynical," she added. "They've got a very slick PR machine on corporate social reponsibility. Any step by a corporation to improve what it's doing is a good thing, but we need to see real reform."

Other elements of the community plan include a target to double the amount of materials that customers bring back to stores for recyling by 2008 - which Sir Terry said would meet around 10 per cent of the additional tonnage needed to meet the UK's packaging recycling targets set by the European Union.

The group is planning to open a model environnment-friendly store, probably in Aylesham, Kent, built entirely from recyclable materials, including wood and recycled plastics. "The store will house all of the latest environmental technology making it, I believe, the greenest store in the world," Sir Terry said.

But he called on the Government to work in partnership with the chain to help it set up its eco-friendly stores. "Much of this new sustainable technology - for example wind turbines at our stores - requires planning permission," he said.

"So the speed with which we can roll it out will depend on how quickly we can secure that permission. I am therefore calling on Government to respond by making it much easier and faster to secure planning consent for sustainable technology."

Tesco will also put nutritional labelling on 7,000 own brand products by next spring and set up a scheme to help children in deprived communities make healthier choices for food.

Aware of the unease that accompanies the relentless spread of Tesco stores - and especially its decision to buy hundreds of local stores in inner-city and urban areas - the group is going to ensure that Tesco Express shopfronts blend in better with the local setting. It also promised to consult more with local communities and hold public exhibitions before opening every new Tesco superstore.

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